World’s greatest caviar establishment born at Hungarian farm

There was a man who came from a family which used to earn a living out of corn planting, but he wanted more. Since then he worked hard and became the most successful man of the international caviar market. The 69-year-old American Bill Holst is such an extraordinary phenomenon on the market of luxurious delicacies that in Forbes Magazine’s interview about his life he was photographed sitting in an excavator in the middle of a junkyard in Wisconsin, holding a spoon of caviar and wearing his t-shirt which has a ‘Bill’ description on it.

According to g7.hu, the explanation for this weird photograph is that he owns a junkyard in the United States where out of used ships, cars and refrigerators nearly 10 tonnes of aluminium is recycled each day. He opened this junkyard after becoming the face of the international caviar market and some say it is more suitable for him than being the exporter of the most famous and luxurious restaurants in the world. But how did Hungary play a part in his successful life?

Bill Holst did not see any caviar until his 50th birthday when he tasted it for the first time, but he does still not eat it regularly. He was suspended from high school in 1968 and started to work in a dielectric material factory and later on, he established his own architecture industry company. This made him possible to buy a sand and gravel mine in the 1970s and made him a successful investor. By the 1990s he owned eleven mines.

Next to one of his mine there was a lake where he populated fish to let his children fish. This was the moment when Holst realised that he is actually really interested in breading different kinds of fish species and was happy and excited when a friend of his mentioned him an investment in Hungary in 1999. Holst took all the money he had and flew to Budapest to investigate the abandoned caviar farm.

He paid approximately 200 thousand American dollars (166,000 Euros) for the farm and made it profitable again. The farm got the company name Forus Akvaculture and its premise was located next to the Hungarian border, not far from the Hungarian populated town Nagyvárad in Komádi, which is a Hungarian town in the county of Hajdú-Bihar (Eastern-Hungary).

The company is still in the property of Holst and he is also one of the company’s directors. After establishing his company in Hungary, he bought another abandoned caviar farm in Germany, but his most profitable business is the Chinese company Hangzhou Qiandaohu Xunlong Sci-Tech, where he is a part-owner of the company.

This Chinese company is the biggest caviar-producer establishment in the world, providing the most expensive and delicious caviar. Last year the Chinese company’s estimated income was nearly 35 million American dollars (29 million Euros). Its Kaluga Queen caviar is considered to be the best one in the world and the world’s best reastaurants‘ most famous delicacy.

Bill Holst’s aim is to broaden his investments in Europe and he is planning to establish new caviar farms in Hungary, Italy, and Greece.